When the movie Jaws first came out, the tagline on the promotional videos back then was: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…” So when a gaggle of House Democrats staged a sit-in just last week, demanding more gun control, I couldn’t help thinking, “Just when you thought it was safe to own a gun…”
After all, “our side” has been “riding high” for some time. There were those two positive rulings by the Supreme Court (Heller and McDonald). Every state now has at least some sort of concealed carry law. Add to that the soaring gun sales, especially among first time buyers, and it was easy to get the impression that things were finally going our way.
But the outburst on the floor of the House of Representatives should serve as a warning that the anti-2nd Amendment fanatics never go away. They just regroup and wait for the next high-profile shooting to use as a springboard to bring gun control back to the front burner.
The Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, is simply their latest excuse. The shooter turned out to be a terrorist, who had made no secret of his motive.
He had a long history of red flags—he had even been investigated by the FBI—not once, but twice—for various behaviors indicating a potential for violence. Co-workers had also reported his “disturbing” statements, but nothing was done.
As a result, the shooter was able to pass the mandatory federal background check and buy a gun and ammunition, perfectly legally. He then methodically planned, organized and carried out an attack that killed 49 innocent people. But no matter, Democrats, including President Obama and Hillary Clinton, did their best to make the Orlando massacre all about (you guessed it!) guns.
They’ve tried this before, of course. After the Virginia Tech shooting in 2009, in which a student killed 32 people and wounded 17 others, similar calls for new gun laws were made. But in that case, for a number of reasons, the public support was not there.
However, in the Orlando massacre, gun control proponents thought they had the “perfect storm”—a self-described terrorist who used a “scary” gun: a 5.56 carbine with a 30-round magazine.
There have been some rumblings of another “assault weapons” ban, including once again restricting magazine capacity. But the main theme of the Democrat “sit-in” was to deny anyone on the so-called “no-fly” list the right to buy a gun (“No Fly? No Buy!”). To their credit, at least Republicans proposed bills that only put a 3-day “hold” on a gun purchase, allowing a purchaser to challenge the action.
But even that restriction would be a dangerous precedent. Using a secret government list to, even temporarily, deny you your rights is a blatant violation of Constitutional due process. Besides, in American law, no citizen has an obligation to prove their innocence—the burden is always on the government to prove its case.
As the 2016 election approaches, be very, very vigilant…
